


what happened at the office christmas party

by ofcomputernerdsandsoufflegirls



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Damerey Secret Santa Exchange, Drinking, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Love Confessions, Office Party, d-0 is a dog, damereysecretsanta, office Christmas party, so is bb-8 - Freeform, supportive best friend finn, use of alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofcomputernerdsandsoufflegirls/pseuds/ofcomputernerdsandsoufflegirls
Summary: The day after the annual office Christmas party, Rey reflects on a huge confession shared to her by a very drunk Poe Dameron, her so called enemy at work. Or was he?---“We’re co-workers who hate each other but you had too much to drink at the staff christmas party and admitted your love for me i don’t know how to act around you now”
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Minor Finn/Rose Tico - Relationship, Poe Dameron/Rey, Rey & D-0
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42
Collections: Damerey Discord Shenanigans





	what happened at the office christmas party

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tell_That_To_Kanjiklub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tell_That_To_Kanjiklub/gifts).



> Merry Christmas! And hope you enjoy it!

Poe Dameron loved her? 

Like actually was in love with her? 

Dio barking away broke Rey away from her thoughts and it was then that she realized that something was burning and smoke was now filling out her apartment. She groaned, rushing over to the stove, to find somehow she burned her water, which shouldn’t have been possible but Finn said it was ‘a Rey speciality’ to burn everything, even the things that couldn’t be burned. 

Dio was there, looking at her with dreary eyes once she took the water out of her burned pot. “Thanks for warning boy,” she gave him a half-smile before leaning down to give her skittish Yorkipoo a pat on the head (he only let her pet her, a year ago when she visited the shelter’s rescue animals because somehow Dio could sense that maybe life had been cruel to her too and if the two of them were together, maybe life could be less cruel). Once she got up from petting her furry friend, she put her hand on her hip while addressing him. “Do you think I should just microwave ramen?” Dio gave her a yap in response and Rey nodded her head. “You’re right. I probably should. Less chance of anything burning.” She hoped. 

She put some water into a bowl before placing the pack of noodles in with the seasoning. Her mind wandered back to the thoughts she had that led to her burning her water. 

Poe freaking Dameron was in love with her. 

And she didn’t know what to do about that. 

The two hated each other furiously at work, taking every moment possible to point out the errors and mistakes the other had before turning it into a roast session in front of their co-workers. There was often a lot of yelling involved, a lot of wanting to pull hair out, and a lot of rolling their eyes (she was pretty sure whenever they had their disagreements in front of anyone, everyone else in the room started rolling their eyes too). They hadn’t always been like this but that was so far ago, Rey could hardly remember it. They were friendly and Rey remembered that when she first laid eyes on Poe Dameron, she thought he was gorgeous with his black hair that always had an errant curl on his forehead and deep, inviting brown eyes that she could spend days getting lost in. But something had changed in Poe’s demeanor towards her and she had no choice but to change how she acted towards him too. And he was no longer gorgeous anymore; he was instead an annoying prick who couldn’t keep his head out of her business who just so happened to be good-looking. And someone she wanted to slap all the time. 

But then last night……

Last night he confessed his love for her at the Christmas office party. 

_ She was standing with Rose in the corner, the both of them not really wanting to interact with anyone else. They knew others there, like Beaumont Kin and his wife Connix, Snap Wexley and his wife Kare, and Iolo Arana. But something about having to mingle with other people plus mixed with alcohol terrified them (despite the fact they worked at a place that required them to talk to other people) and with a mutual agreement, they decided to just stay in the corner, to avoid embarrassment if they got too drunk and take it as a chance to catch up.  _

_ “Finn looks like he’s in his element,” Rey remarked, nodding at their best friend and Rose’s boyfriend who was chatting with a group of people near the spiked punch bowl.  _

_ Rose scoffed with a smile, taking a sip of her drink. “He’s a Calrissian. They’re like born and bred to be charmers.”  _

_ “Are you saying you’re immune to Finn’s charms?”  _

_ “Nah, I’m not. I give well into it baby,” Rose chuckled before giving her a hip bump.  _

_ Rey giggled at her friend’s antics. “You did or else you wouldn’t be dating.” Rose gave a little happy sigh, an indication that somehow in this wild, crazy world of dating, the two of them managing to work out despite their rocky first meeting.  _

_ “What about you? Have you fallen into anyone’s charms recently?”  _

_ “Nope,” Rey answered before taking a sip. “Unless you count Dio and you know how charming he is.”  _

_ “He definitely is,” Rose agreed with the nod of her head.  _

_ “Who’s charming?” an all too familiar voice chimed in and Rey looked to see none other than her arch-nemesis Poe Dameron looking at her. “You know who I think is charming, Rey Kenobi.”  _

_ Rey froze at that, her eyes widening. Was this some cruel joke he was playing on her? Telling everyone that she was charming, only to tell everyone a moment later that she was a bitch? She knew Poe Dameron was a jerk but she didn’t he was this much of an asshole.  _

_ She was just about to open her mouth to retort but then Poe continued on. “She’s so beautiful and so pretty, Snap. She has all these freckles and such a bright smile, I feel like I’m blinded by it and I know that I piss her off, but like every time in her presence, all the words I want to say just come out all wrong. I want to tell her how I feel but I feel like she’ll just take it wrong you know. She’s like a complete goddess and I don’t deserve to be in presence. And oh, she’s so smart, so freaking intelligent, I feel like an idiot around her. I mean I am an idiot, what am I saying? I’m a dummy. And of course because I can’t stand being dumb, I end up making her mad every single day. You know what I would want to do is make her happy for once, to have her smile at me with those gorgeous eyes of hers. Maybe that’s a way to start. Tell her I’m a dummy and she’s the smartest person in the room and she just lights up the room whenever she walks in. And she’s beautiful and that I’m in love with her. Oh wait, that’s probably not the best thing to say huh. That would probably scare her away.”  _

_ And still in a very shocked state, she ended up nodding her head and Poe took it as the sign that he probably shouldn’t tell her that he was in love with her and he walked away, thanking Snap for giving him good advice and stating he should probably get some more of his drink. It was only after he left that Rey realized that he was pretty drunk, his normally perfect tousled hair a complete mess and his cheeks red. He was talkative but not this talkative; it didn’t seem like he had any filter or even thought about what he was saying. Or who he was saying it to because she was obviously NOT Snap.  _

_ Rose broke her out of her stupor by saying, “Did I just see and hear what I thought I saw and heard?”  _

_ “Um…..yes?” she squeaked out.  _

She ended up leaving right after that in an Uber, leaving poor Rose to defend herself at the Christmas party as Finn was still off chatting with other people from the office. Rey couldn’t stand the idea of having to be there another second, really needing the time to process what Poe had just said and partially out of embarrassment if Poe tried to talk to her again. 

What would she have said to him anyways?  _ I thought we were enemies? I thought you hated me with a burning passion so deep you had a photo up in your office about how you wanted to murder me at one point?  _ There didn’t seem to be a good answer if he tried to talk to her again. 

The beeping of her microwave indicating that her ramen was done pulled her out of her thoughts and Rey hoped that filling her stomach with food might help her figure out what to do. She carried her food and a fork over to her couch and Dio followed along, the clip clop of his paws hitting against the tile floor helping to ground her. Rey settled down onto the couch, her bowl of ramen in her lap and Dio soon climbed up onto the couch to sit on top of her, curling up in a little ball to rest. 

Rey wondered as she ate her food if Poe was actually in love with her; it could’ve been a joke that he was planning on telling everyone at some point. But something in the way he was talking about her made her question that train of thought. There was something there….she just couldn’t place her finger on it. But it was definitely the look he had when talking about her. That was no question. 

Her phone buzzed from the coffee table from where she left it last night and Rey leaned over to grab it, seeing texts from Finn and Rose and then a text from Leia at the top, requesting that she come in tomorrow to look at a few things before their mandatory Christmas vacation. She quickly opened her phone, typing in a ‘yes’ to Leia before turning her attention to Finn and Rose’s texts. Rose’s texts were from last night, hoping that she got home safely before texting her about how boring the rest of the party was without her. Finn’s was from this morning, asking how she was doing and if she needed to talk. 

Grateful that her friend was giving her the opportunity to talk, she hit the call button on his contact button and the phone rang for a few seconds before Finn picked up. “‘Ello?” 

“Hey Finn.” 

“Hey Peanut. You doing okay? You left pretty early yesterday.” Oh gosh, Finn had like a secret intuition about things concerning her. Either that or he could read her mind. 

“What time did you leave?” Rey asked, turning her attention to Dio and petting him absentmindedly. 

“Not until probably 1,” Finn answered. “Rose knocked out hard on the way home.” 

“See this is what happens when you leave her alone with an endless supply of drinks,” Rey joked, trying to get Finn’s attention away from the reason why he called her. 

“I didn’t think it would be that bad!” Finn protested with a laugh. “But enough about me, what’s going on?” 

Rey didn’t answer at first, gears turning in her head about how she should tell him. Finn didn’t pressure her to answer him, which she appreciated. Finn was good like that, patient and kind and always knowing that when you wanted to speak you would. “Poe came up to me and Rose last night and he told me he was in love with me.” 

Finn was silent on the other side of the phone before wildly proclaiming, “What?” 

“I know right! I’m just standing there with Rose and Poe just came up to us, very drunk might I add, and then going on about how lovely I am and how much he’s in love with me and I just-” She sighed, running a hand over her face. “And I don’t know what to do about it.” 

“Well,” Finn started. “I guess a good place to start is to actually figure out how you feel about him.” 

“What?” she asked him in shock. 

“How you feel, you know about him loving you.” 

“I-” How did she feel? She didn’t know what she felt. She felt sort of insane for having been stuck on this thought for over the past ten hours, the thought sticking with her even how she fell asleep and then she dreamed of curly black hair and luscious pink lips descending down her neck and to her body and then- Nope, she wasn’t having this line of thought when Finn was on the other side of the line. She knew she thought Poe was good looking, heck if you asked Rey of three years ago, she definitely would’ve admitted that she masturbated to him a few times before things went south. But now? Now things were different; she thought he hated her, every moment between the two of them always filled with tension. “I’m just confused,” she ended up settling on. 

“Confused about what?” 

“Him being in love with me,” Rey sighed. “Finn, this whole entire time I thought he hated me and you knew that!” It was the topic of discussion that was frequently brought up when Rey was drunk and around Finn and Rose; somehow she would always go on a tangent about how much Poe criticized her work and wouldn’t stop yelling at her and how she was sick and annoyed about it. 

Finn snorted and that got Rey confused. “Rey honey, he’s never hated you. Poe’s an idiot yes but he doesn’t hate you. He’s told me thousands of times that he feels bad about yelling at you and that he’s in love with you.” 

“Then why hasn’t he apologized? And why didn’t you tell me?” And she was not counting his drunken rant last night. 

“He has, in his own Poe Dameron way. He gets you the coffee every morning on your desk. And why would I? It would spoil all the fun.” 

Her eyes widened at Finn’s reveal. For the past two years, she had been receiving coffees on her desk everyday; every morning, the cup was waiting there for her, piping hot and freshly made. Rey had just assumed it was Finn’s doing and thanked him thoroughly for it. “What? Finn, I thought it was you.” 

“Well it was me who suggested it at first but he ended up doing it everyday.” 

“Then why didn’t you correct me? Or tell me?” 

“Poe didn’t want that.” Her cheeks warmed at his name. Poe did that for her? Every day despite the fact that he didn’t verbally apologize? It was sweet of him to do that for her but she still would’ve liked an in person apology. “He thought it was just best to let you think it was from me cuz if you knew it was from him, you probably wouldn’t have taken it.” He had a point. 

“Finn,” she ended up muttering after a few minutes of silence. “What am I going to do?” 

“What do you want to do?” 

Slap him for being an ass. 

Kiss him for being so thoughtful. 

Slap him then kiss him so he was out of breath and debauched. If she could, she would have him screaming her name, the only coherent thought in his mind. 

Oh no, that definitely wasn’t proper behavior. She just ended up giving a screamed babble of syllables as a response with Finn laughing in the background. (Dio definitely wasn’t appreciative of the fact that Rey woke him up from his nap)

\---

She came bright and early the next day to the office, slipping in hurriedly to make sure that Poe didn’t see her. Well she came quickly under the guise of ‘Leia needs me and it’s important’. Not that anyone would ask her, but even if someone did, she wouldn’t tell them the real reason why she came so early. 

Rey glanced around the space, noting it was blissfully empty and free of Poe Dameron. The light was on in Leia’s office, as expected, since she was the boss and ran the place. She gave a little sigh of relief before heading to her cubicle, noting that the papers Leia wanted her to check over were already on her desk, attached on top of the folder was a sticky note requesting her presence in her office after looking at the files. She opened it peering inside; it didn’t seem like too many documents to scan through, maybe only taking her 15 minutes to look through and then another 15 minutes talking to Leia about it. 

Right when she was about to plop her purse onto the floor, she heard the distinct noise of someone walking in, getting closer and closer to her cubicle. Rey was good at hearing things; having grown up from foster home to foster home (to then ending up Ben Kenobi’s home for forever), she had grown accustomed to having to be alert and listening to whatever was coming her way. It helped protect her from whatever was coming her way (even though it may have not been enough to save her from the beatings from Unkar and that brought up a whole lot of memories she did not want to revisit). 

Putting her ear closely to the wall, she overheard the familiar sound of Poe Dameron’s voice and apparently he was on the phone, talking to someone. “No, no, there’s no way that Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie. It takes place at Christmas!” Rey heard Poe argue, his voice light despite the argument he was having. “No, just because there’s lights up in Jumanji, no it doesn’t make it a Christmas movie. Pa, did they ever explicitly say it was Christmas?” 

Then his voice was just outside her cubicle and Rey panicked, scrambling underneath her desk and taking her purse with her, pulling the chair towards her to hide her from sight. She didn’t know what she would do if Poe saw her in here; she huffed quietly, why should she even worry about whether or not Poe saw her? It was her space after all for heaven’s sake!

But then the door opened and she saw the lower half of Poe’s body come in. She averted her eyes from the one part of her body that she could not stop thinking about after her revelation yesterday (and no, let’s not go there because it’s so awkward goddamnit, having sex daydreams about the co-worker you thought who hated you but is actually in love with you but then again she was having sex dreams about him for the past few years without wanting to admit it). Poe’s legs were in front of her now and she was only assuming that he was putting something down on her desk - aka the coffee that was there every morning on her desk. “Well Pa, they explicitly said that for Die Hard to be submitted to the film festival, it had to be set at Christmas. Wait, actually I could be wrong.” 

Then Poe Dameron was out of her cubicle, walking to his cubicle, a little further down from hers. She peeked her head out to check for sure that he wasn’t coming back and after a few seconds, she determined that he wasn’t and gave a little exhale. If she hadn’t hid underneath her desk, would they have talked about what happened? Even if they did talk about it, she wouldn’t even know what to say besides squeaking and babbling incoherent phrases in gibberish. When Rey finally stood up, she saw exactly as she predicted, a coffee cup on her desk. She felt pretty touched seeing it there and her heart started beating a bit faster at the thought behind it. The man who brought it there for her. 

She shook her head. Nope she didn’t want to think about it here; for now she was going to focus on getting her work done and then - 

There was a knock on her cubicle and she turned to see Poe Dameron standing outside. 

Fuck. 

“Oh, hi,” Rey stammered out. 

“Hey,” Poe said, looking slightly nervous for the first time in the amount of time she had known him. “I didn’t know you were here already.” 

“I went to the bathroom before coming here,” she lied. “Drank too much water last night before going to bed and then I rushed here this morning so I could get the work for Leia done.” Internally she was smacking herself for being too TMI and for not shutting her mouth close. Why was she being like this? She usually could keep her mouth closed around Poe Dameron; but that was usually before she said something really bad. Oh no, was she going to spill out how much she wanted to fu-

“Yeah I totally understand. I’m too much of a workaholic and then I forget about basic needs like showering and peeing,” Poe chuckled lightly and Rey nodded nervously, thinking too much about what would come out of her mouth without her brain thinking about it to notice Poe’s grimace and shake of his head. 

“So, what can I do for you today Poe?” Rey asked him, putting a light smile on her face to cover up her nervousness. She noted in her brain that this was the first time in a very long time that they were nice to each other; it was really nice, despite the awkwardness of it all. “Need me to also check some files.” 

“Nah, actually I came to talk to you about what happened at the party,” Poe told her, his face turning red as he brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. “Snap told me that I said some things to you and I just wanted to say-” 

“Did you mean it?” she asked, shocking herself.  _ What happened to filter girl? _

“Mean what?” he looked up at her embarrassed. 

“That you loved me.” 

There was a pregnant pause between the two of them before Poe spoke up. “Yes.” When Rey didn’t respond, shock at it actually being true, he continued on, covering up his face with his hand. “And I’m sorry about it all, everything. I’m sorry for continuously insulting you, making you mad, and for springing this up on you. I know it’s burdensome to have all of this all on your plate, especially before Christmas, and I just want you to know that I’ll leave you alone after this and -” 

Poe spoke some more but Rey didn’t hear any of it, heart beating so loudly in her chest, she just let her impulses take over. Which meant taking Poe’s hand away from his face, grabbing both sides of his face and then leaning in to kiss him, which then led to him promptly shutting up. It had been a pretty long time since she had last kissed someone - it was Finn, a drunken night during their college days and it didn’t mean anything - so she didn’t really know what to do with her lips except pressing it firmly against Poe’s. She pulled away after a few moments, feeling embarrassed about how bad the kiss was (but now she finally knew what Poe Dameron’s lips felt like and it was rather oh so wonderful and despite how awkward it was, it was one of the best moments in her life) and was ready to apologize when Poe pulled her back in to kiss her once more. Her eyes fluttered close at the feeling of his lips against hers own and from the way that Poe was kissing her, it definitely was evident that he was much more experienced than she was. She then felt his tongue tracing the seam of her lips and she willing opened her lips to let him in; the intensity of this kiss made her see fireworks behind her eyes and her heart felt like it wanted to burst out of her chest as he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her and his hand reaching the small of her back. 

They finally pulled away, minutes or hours later she didn’t even know, gasping for air but unwilling to stay away from each other, foreheads resting against each other. While still panting for air, Rey spoke, “I think that maybe I’m in love with you too. I’ve wanted to do that since...since forever.” 

“Me too Sunshine,” Poe chuckled. “Ever since I first laid eyes on you.” 

“Sunshine?” she asked him, staring at him in the eyes. Oh my, his eyes seemed to be sparkling; was it because of her? 

“I call you that in my head a lot,” he told her bashfully, looking away. She kissed him on the nose, encouraging him to continue. “‘Cuz every time you smile, you light up the room and I just can’t keep my eyes off of you.” 

“I like that,” she admitted, her heart fluttering at Poe’s words. “But now, I feel like we have a lot to talk about.” 

Poe agreed, “That we do.” 

She looked at him hopefully, hoping that their talk about everything happening could clear the air and lead to  _ other _ things. And when she looked at Poe, she saw the same look being reflected back at her and it was then she knew that everything would turn out alright in the end. 

\---

( _ One year later, Christmas Day _ ) 

Rey was curled up on the couch with a corgi on one side of her and yorkiepoo on the other. The fire was raging hot in front of her and the tree was lit up in the corner of the room, presents underneath and ready to be ripped apart. She was quite content and warm where she was, but despite it all, she knew one thing was missing. 

“Some hot chocolate Sunshine?” her boyfriend of a year asked her, a mug extended towards her and a charming smile on his face. 

“Ah,” she stretched out like a starfish before taking the hot cup out of his hands. “Just the thing I was missing.” 

Poe raised his eyebrow at her before settling next to her, nudging his corgi BB out of the way. BB huffed at him in protest of being moved out of his comfortable spot before complying with his owner’s request and settling on the other side of him. “Not me?” 

“Nope,” she took a sip before snuggling up to him, fitting her head underneath his chin. “Definitely not.” 

“Tease,” Poe said, sighing contentedly and wrapping an arm around her. 

“You still love me.” 

“That I do. And I will forever.” 

Now she was definitely content, her heart filled with love for the man besides her. She glanced up at him, before leaning in to kiss him. “I love you too.” 


End file.
